The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1887-02-23
THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO.
STRANGE CONTRASTS OF BARBAR-
ISM AND CIVILIZATION.


A City of Mexico letter to the Boston
herald says In walk Of five minutes
from the door of house in which are
gathered treasures of art and splendid
book collections, where the decorator and
upholsterer have wrought their marvels
of taste and comfort, you may go through
a lane, hidden behind high wall, where
more than $50 Indians clad each in two
simple garments of coarsest woven blue
cloth, live in adobe huts ranged each side
of dirty ditch which carries with its
filthy water more than the seventy stinks
of Cologne. The interior of these huts
contain only the simplest articles of use
"A straw mat on the dirt for bed, a
few bits os pottery for culinary use, and
that is all-absolutely all. The women,
strange, uncouth creatures, with long
black hair gathered in coarse braids,
almost always with a child as brown as
burnt lumber and as dirty as you can
think, strapped on the back, with faces
destitute of intelligence-the faces of
souls never awakened-these are the
female savages of a famous metropolis
These women make a coarse sort of tor
tilla, which they sell to very low class
of common laborers. The men, equally
unkempt, with british faces, are car
boneros- sellers of charcoal.
They are q sort of squatters; their
former homes were among the noun
tains, but they are now camped in a city
with whose real life they have no con-
nection. They are the pariahs of society,
lower than the lowest, living lives that
seem not human, and making one feel
that the only justification of their ex-
istence is the Buddhistic doctrine of
transmigIation, or the Darwinian doc
trine of evolution. What is so repulsive
as the human face lacking intelligence 2
A dog is respectable in comparison. He,
at least comes up to the idea of what he
should be.
One day, examining a house which
was under repair, climbed short lad
der at a back wall, and, looking over,
was paralyzed with astonishment-it
was like a peep into the dark conti-
nent' of Stanley-a whole narrow lane
filed with savages, a swarming plague
spot, horribly repulsive conjunction of
wild people Then l began to realize
what Law concealed beind the walls of
the Aztec capital. Probably these peo-
pie have not changed since the days be-
fore the conquest. They still talk their
queer language, curious jargon, filled
with sounds unfamiliar to our ears.
When you chance on a settlement of
these people, it gives you an idea of how
far our Caucasian race has travelled from
its origin, and what civilization means.
A walk of only five minutes. at the
most, from the lower end of the alameda,
or public garden, will take you to a sec
ton rapidly building up with houses of
good class. 1t is section where the
land is, perhaps, two feet higher than in
the centre of the city. These new streets
are paved, and along one of them the
electrict light gives nightly illumination.
Being a new section--part of 1t the gar
den of the now confiscated convent of
San Fernando-there are some vacant
lots where a number of poor laborers
have sqnatted, taking the leftover rem
nants of houses, blocks of refuse stone,
etc., to make their huts, or jacales, as
they are called. Here in this section,
amid new houses, graceful, with pretty
patios, filled with well-to do people, live,
in their huts, the families / will intro
duce you to- They are not the sort of
Indians have just been talking about,
but higher grade, and with some am
bition to rise in the world.
Let us take this queer, tent-like hut in
vacant lot where workmen are Just be
ginning house building operations
New England lad, playing at being a red
Indian in his fathers back yard, would
disdain such a wigwam. 1t is made OF
pieces of half-rotten board, some refuse
tin roofing, and a decayed straw mat.
Its capacity is about that of four per-
sons, packed close. This is the home
of Jose and Simona, an industrious
married pair, who have in family 6
grown up daughter and her husband, the
latter working away from the home and
coming there only to sleep, as Simona
saws, and then | wonder how they car
find room to sleep in that tiny hut. ST.
mona and her married daughter make
tortillas, which the latter peddles on the
streets of the poorer sections of the town
This daughter has two little children,
one bright-looking lad of three, whose
brown skin shows through his ragged cot
ton shirt, and the other tiny girl of two
who is clad in bit of an old cotton re-
boso of the mothers. The work which
Jose has is precarious. In neighborins
street the residents hire him to sweeI
and water the pavement in front of theil
uOOlSt anu lC DolhElAAlCs tuluS LnI6i
reales daY, or thirty and hal
cents, equal to about thirty cents Amer
lean money. The daily food of th
family, when Jose is working regularly
consists Of frijoles, tortillas and chile
When Jose is out of work, the womel
must earn enough to support the family
and Simona assures us that there is thel
"muy POGO, which could be translated
''mighty little" Industrious woman A
day of steady toll does not bring her
profit of over twelve and a half cents
House rent they cannot pay, so they haV
to squat in vacant lots They have NJ
hope in life, and consequently no ambi
tion.
sad is the death of the little children
of the city poor. A tiny coffin is hired
few flowers brought, and the little fu
neral procession may consist only of tn,
father carrying his dead baby on hi
head, the mother coming behind, ant
perhaps a brother of the dead baby
Often the women do not 90 out to In
a